1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to quality determination and segmentation. More specifically, an exemplary aspect of the invention relates to quality and segmentation determination of biometric image information, such as fingerprint, handprint or footprint image information.
Livescan type devices provide preview modes of operation that serve as an aid to the operator for finger placement and image fidelity. Because of processing power, timing restrictions and bandwidth requirements, these devices and their associated quality metrics are unable to provide output that can be correlated to other more sophisticated measures of quality used by enrollment applications or Automatic Fingerprint Identification Systems (AFIS), and their associated matching engines. The limitations of the hardware also contributes to deficiencies in the ability to dynamically segment the fingertips from the rest of the hand structure and to separate the image background, such as, smudges, particulates, latent prints, and the like from the fingertips.
As a substitute, livescan type devices utilize image contrast based quality metrics and static scanner platen areas for segmentation. Fingerprint quality metrics used within enrollment and AFIS/matching applications are typically not suitable for this preview capability due to their requirements for full resolution scanning of the fingerprint imagery, typically at 500 ppi and 1000 ppi.